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About Wimborne and North Dorset

About Wimborne Minster

Dedicated to St Cuthburga, sister of the Saxon King Ine, who established an abbey on the site in 705, Wimborne Minster houses the grave of Alfred the Great’s elder brother King Ethelred and was an important religious site long before the conquering Normans remodelled it in the 12th century. As the town grew up around the Minster and the adjacent market it now boasts a nationally significant collection of 15th, 16th and 17th century buildings, including the Priest’s House Museum and town hall.

About North Dorset

Famous as Thomas Hardy’s ‘Vale of the Little Dairies’, the Blackmore Vale is at the heart of the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty bounded by the Dorset Downs chalk ridge, the chalk scarp of Cranborne Chase and the watershed of the Stour and Yeo valleys. It is also home to some of Dorset’s most beautiful scenery – more than adequate reward for a clamber to the top of Hambledon Hill, Okeford Hill or Bulbarrow Hill, all of which afford magnificent views.